The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) will charter a Post-Panamax vessel before the opening of the expanded Canal to be used for training purposes in the Third Set of Locks, the ACP press release said. The Executive Vice President of Operations Esteban Saenz reported that the Panama Canal will charter a Post-Panamax ship to train pilots and tugboat captains that will assist in transits through the new lane. Saenz said the vessel will be used several months before the opening of the expanded Canal to test the new locks. "This is one of the best ways to train our pilots and tug captains in the joint effort required to transit through the two new lock complexes of the expanded Canal," said Saenz. He added that since 2011 the Panama Canal has promoted workforce training for the operation of the expanded waterway.

From June 1st, SVITZER will start operating in Europe's largest port, Rotterdam. The operation will be located in the heart of the Maasvlakte positioned to serve our key clients, the Company said in a press release. The operation will be a 100% SVITZER operation. Peter Rondhuis, Managing Director, Continental Europe, is excited about this new adventure: "The operation in Rotterdam is fully in line with our ambition to increase our footprint in Europe based on client requests. As a global market leader in towage it is exciting for SVITZER to start its operations in the busiest port in Europe".

Vostochny Port based Vostochnaya Stevedoring Company LLC has successfully handled Triple-E 18340teu MV Marstal Maersk, the port operator said in a press release. The MV Marstal Maersk is the fifth vessel of the class of large, fuel-efficient container ships that have made calls at the Vostochny Port's terminal. The terminal has seen arrivals of Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller, Mary Maersk, Marie Maersk and Maribo Maersk. Upon completion of unloading / loading operations the ship proceeded to the South Korean port of Busan.Marstal Maersk was built at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME Daewoo). Ship's length overall - 399 m, beam - 59 m, depth - 73 m.Vostochnaya Stevedoring Company LLC is the largest container terminal in the Far East Region of the Russian Federation. It operates on the territory of Vostochny Port. VSC is a part of Global Ports group. The terminal’s total capacity is 550,000 TEUs.Global Ports Investments PLC is the leading operator of container terminals in the Russian market. Global Ports’ terminals are located in the Baltic and Far East Basins, key regions for foreign trade cargo flows. Global Ports operates five container terminals in Russia (Petrolesport, First Container Terminal, Ust-Luga Container Terminal and Moby Dik in the St. Petersburg and Ust-Luga port cluster, and Vostochnaya Stevedoring Company in the Vostochny Port) and two container terminals in Finland (Multi-Link Terminals Helsinki and Multi-Link Terminals Kotka). Global Ports Group also owns Yanino Logistics Park and inland Logistika-Terminal, both located in the vicinity of St. Petersburg, and 50% of the major oil product terminal, AS Vopak E.O.S., in Estonia. Global Ports’ major shareholders are Transportation Investments Holding Limited (operating under the brand name of N-Trans), one of the largest private transportation and infrastructure groups in Russia (30.75%), and APM Terminals B.V. (30.75%).

A one-day dock strike at the Port of Mombasa over a pay resulted in a swift 12.5 per cent wage increase, which brought jubilation to dockers at Kenya's main harbour, reported the East African Standard. Dock Workers Union (DWU) leaders announced a 12.5 per cent salary increase for the highest paid docker and 15 per cent for the lowest.
The occasion also marked the conclusion of the 2014/2015 of the labour contract talks, marked by disagreements between the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) and the union, which led to the day-long strike. The lowest paid docker will earn KES27,690 (US$315.37) a month up from KES24,080 while the highest earning docker will earn KES80,516 up from KES71,570. House allowance rises from KES12,000 for lowest paid dockers to KES15,000 while the highest grade gets KES29,000 instead of KES25,500.

A freight newsletter is raising fears that the west coast International Longshore and Warehouse Union, currently in contract talks, will likely engage in slowdowns to provide leverage in negotiations rather than to strike outright.
FTR Transportation Intelligence's State of Freight Today newsletter said the ILWU will likely stress market until "port operators and shippers suffer enough to make concessions".
With bargaining talks over the next three months expected to be difficult and supply chains in North America "strongly affected", shippers have been "moving up their orders and shifting routing," said FTR Transportation Intelligence's managing director Noel Perry.
"Intermodal Association of North America data indicates that movements of international containers on rail were up over 11.5 per cent year over year in April," he said.
A recent survey found two-thirds of international container shippers were contemplating moving a portion of their west coast volumes through other ports, reported American Shipper.
Mr Perry said ports in the northeast will have trouble handling such a big shift in volume as they are already congested and have seen a decline in productivity owing to the shift to bigger ships, resulting in a concentration of activity on some days and little activity on others.

The federal Water Resources Reform and Development Act has cleared the way for construction to begin on the US$266 million project to deepen the port of Savannah's navigation channel. "The deepening will cut transportation costs by reducing transit delays for larger, more efficient post-panamax vessels," Georgia ports authority executive director Curtis Foltz said. "Cost reductions of about 30 per cent are expected, saving billions over the 50-year life of the project." The bill officially lifts the spending limit set when lawmakers first authorised the project in 1999, which will allow both state and federal dollars to flow into dredging. According to GPA board chairman Robert Jepson the harbour deepening will not only enable the port to handle today's big ships but will also lower shipping costs by $213 million a year, for a "return on investment of $5.50 for every dollar spent to construct and maintain this project". Initial contracts will include dredging to extend the entrance channel from the mouth of the Savannah River by seven miles further into the Atlantic Ocean.

THE Bengpu-Taicang-Shanghai container freight service has commenced its maiden voyage from Bengpu port international container terminal, marking a new era of the container shipping service in the Huaihe River, a river to the north of Yangtze, reports Xinhua. Huaihe River has achieved its goal of providing river-sea intermodal service with the opening up of the Bengpu-Taicang-Shanghai container service and the operation of the Bengpu New Port Phase 2 Container Terminal. Port of Bengpu plans to launch domestic container services such as the Bengpu-Yangzhou and the Bengbu-Lianyungang line in the near future to further promote the development of the export-oriented economy in Bengpu and northern Anhui province.

HUTCHISON's Port of Felixstowe has docked its first ship call on Evergreen's China Europe Shuttle service, which had only called continental ports before the Taiway shipping line joined the CKYHE Alliance on the Asia-Europe trade.
This also fulfils Evergreen's promise last year to switch from Thamesport to Felixstowe, both owned by the Hutchison group, before it announced it would join the CKYH Alliance of Cosco, "K" Line, Yang Ming and Hanjin, making it the CKYHE..
Recently DP World's London Gateway and Southampton announced that they had won services from the rival G6 Alliance, noted Lloyd's List.

CRIMEA's seaports are being seized by Russian separatist authorities, as well as harbour and pilotage services now under new enterprises called "Crimean Ports" and "Pilot-Crimea".
In March 2014, the port of Evpatoria volumes by 31.4 per cent, Sevastopol by 35.2 per cent, Yalta by 81.9 per cent, Theodosia by 25.6 per cent and Kerch by 72.5 per cent, according to the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority.
It has not been decided yet which Crimean ports will be placed under the authority of the federal authorities of Russia, and which will remain under the authority of Crimea, reports New York's Maritime Advocate.
On March 28, the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Rosmorrechflot" appointed harbour masters of sea ports in Crimea. On March 31 the Crimean and Sevastopol branches of Rosmorport were established.
Apparently, Russia will take all responsibilities related to the safety of navigation in Sevastopol and other ports of Crimea, the report said.
It is expected that the 15 million tons of cargo handled in the Crimean ports in 2013 now will henceforth be processed in other Ukrainian ports.
Crimean ports may be closed to the rest of the world. On April 15, the Ukrainian parliament adopted the law, which declares the Crimean peninsula as "temporary occupied territory, said the report.
"It is possible to speak in terms of a banning of the ships calling at Crimean ports, from entering the ports of Ukraine. This kind of ban was tested in Cyprus in connection with the occupation of northern Cyprus in 1974," said the Maritime Advocate.
"Despite the progress in resolving that political conflict, until recently the masters of vessels calling at the ports of Northern Cyprus were subject to criminal penalties, including imprisonment.
"It is commonly known that tracing the route of a ship is not particularly difficult today given the use of AIS and other services'" the report said.

KALMAR, part of Cargotec, has won a contract to raise the height of three ship-to-shore (STS) cranes by six metres for Terminal de Contenidors de Barcelona in Spain to meet rising container traffic as more large ships call.
The work on the project is expected to begin in the third quarter with completion for all three cranes by year end.
The terminal has an annual handling capacity of 2.3 million TEU, making it a main logistics platforms in the Mediterranean region.
Its focus is the "development of intermodal container traffic throughout South Europe, where increasing its front line ship-to-shore crane capacity is an important strategic development for the business and its competitive positioning in the market", a company statement said.
The cranes, originally provided by another supplier, will be heightened by Kalmar's crane team in the region. The scope includes complex engineering works and coordination of the project through to completion.
Heightening an STS crane, which weighs up to 2,000 tonnes, involves the use of a specialist jacking device to insert heightening construction and raise the whole crane by six metres, reaching 47 metres under spreader.